“A Zen proverb states: “When I was young and free, the mountains were the mountains, the river was the river, the sky was the sky. Then I lost my way, and the mountains were no longer the mountains, the river was no longer the river, the sky was no longer the sky. Then I attained satori (the Zen term for enlightenment), and the mountains were again the mountains, the river was again the river, and the sky was again the sky” – Robert Johnson, Transformation
Wake up . . .
Wake up . . .
Wake up . . .
Wake up . . .
Hello? Is this enlightenment? Have I reached enlightenment?
New phone, who dis?
Fuck.
Not long ago, I wrote my Roadmap To Connection Series, which is very similar to what you’re about to read.
So why am I reading this then, you asshole?
Well, as I went back to read it, I couldn’t help but cringe. Sloppy is the best way to describe how some of those blogs came out, also half the reason why I feel the need to retackle this issue. The other half––most important––is that I can’t help but notice, now, more than ever, people are waking up at a staggering rate.
Adorable, but not quite what I mean.
That’s more like it.
Now, who am I to write a blog about a subject as heavy as “waking up?” Honestly, probably not the right guy. I’m just some dude giving his two cents that you didn’t ask for––but I guess if you’re reading this, then you kind of did.
If by the end my words do you absolutely no justice, but this topic is enough to make you want to dive deeper, I’d suggest looking into some of these names: Sam Harris, Tara Brach, Adyashanti, Jack Kornfield, or Ram Dass, to name a few. However, most people aren’t going to do that. Or if they do end up doing a deep dive, the language used by these people isn’t always the most relatable.
That’s where this blog comes into play. To hopefully work on bridging the gap from “woo-woo” to relatable.
Don’t let that line fool you into making it seem like I know this “great big deal” about waking up. I’m still trying to understand it for myself. That means this blog is only a mirror to my current level of understanding. Pursue the things that resonate with you, call me out on the things you don’t agree with (or do 🙂 ) and discard whatever does not.
WHAT IS WAKING UP?
Before this can go any further, we have to clean up some verbiage that way I don’t lose any of you before this even begins.
Let’s start with the term waking up.
When I hear the phrase “waking up,” what I feel is meant, is a shift in your perception. Is that not what being “woke” is to all my woke people out there? One day you saw the world through the lens of A, and now you see the world through the lens of B.
It is a little more complicated than that, which we’ll get into, but in the end, THAT’S IT. If you claim it’s anything other than that, fight me.
If it’s that easy, then why is there so much resistance?
One problem that we run into with awakening is making it a bigger deal than it really is because, ya know, only certain people are allowed to be “woke.”
I know we want it to be some significant thing, but it really isn’t, and it also doesn’t happen in a single moment. Maybe for some it does. But I highly fucking doubt it, man. If someone tries to sell you on them being a guru who reached enlightenment in a single meditation, and that they now have the answers, punch them in the dick or vagina.
The next issue we run into is that usually, the people associated with this “area of life” (we’ll leave it there) are a major turnoff for us. You know what I’m talking about, let’s all say it together; dirty hippies, yogis, freaks, overly religious people, new age assholes, and that dude who has a Buddha tattoo and won’t shut up about meditation––aka me.
We’ve been fooled into believing that waking up is some mystical state that’s solely associated with those groups, but it’s not. For the sake of demystifying waking up though, let’s look at why it is usually associated with them, because there is some truth there.
For starters, most people we think of as “hippies” are probably doing psychedelics, which usually allows them to be more open. The primary factor being that the ego is no longer trying to justify all our shitty behaviors while under the influence of psychedelics. We’re now forced to look at ourselves in a way that most people want no part of––which is hard, but the return on investment of doing that is priceless.
I don’t want to get lost in a psychedelic rant right now, but know psychedelic assisted-psychotherapy is closing in on becoming a legal form of therapy as soon as 2021. And by the time you read this, Oregon will have made Psilocybin Mushrooms legal. Definitely an area worth looking into.
(Disclaimer: As someone who’s an advocate of psychedelics, know that they get us a foot in the door, but they’re not the answer.)
As for the yogis and other religious people, it’s this turning inward aspect that brings them to these heightened levels of awareness. Unless you have some form of a practice where you are consciously carving out time to bring your attention into your body or self-reflect, I think it is much harder for this awakening process to happen.
However, the keyword there is harder, not impossible.
People wake up when a loved one dies unexpectedly or a long-term relationship comes to an end. It’s also not uncommon that someone goes through this process after finding themselves in a bad accident or at their version of rock bottom. Does it always happen? No, but those are some other major key players in accelerating the waking up process.
Regardless, it is real, but the idea alone is exceptionally taboo to our western culture, which leaves us with a bigger issue; if people find themselves going through the waking up process, there’s nothing in Western culture to help guide us.
Thankfully, more and more, we’re uprooting this “taboo” concept and making it a reality. We are slowly creating a map for our western culture that we so desperately need.
I believe that most people are awake to some degree, but I think there are levels to it. It’s kind of like how you feel you got this shit all figured out every year, but then you look back on those moments only to realize what a fucking moron you were. Yeah, I think waking up is something like that.
If I had to breakdown the process of waking up for practical purposes, this is what I think it would look like:
- Ignorance is bliss
- Awareness is chaos
- Awareness turns you into a douchebag
- Awareness is bliss
- Rinse and repeat until everything becomes a little gentler and you reach Nirvana––or some shit like that
Now that we know the absolute path towards Nirvana, let’s look at what these sections entail.
IGNORANCE IS BLISS
“Simple man and enlightened man have much in common, including a direct, uncomplicated view of life, and so they react in similar ways. The only true difference between them is that the enlightened man is conscious of his condition, while the simple man is not. Complex man, on the other hand, spends much of his time worrying and often is in a state of anxiety.” – Robert Johnson Transformation
(If you don’t know this scene, click here.)
After giving it some thought, I think people find themselves in the “ignorance is bliss” category one of two ways:
The first being that we never know we’re in it. We walk around all day long in this dream-like state. Not until something wakes us out of that state do we ever even realize that we were in it. I mean think about your actual dreams. Unless you’re enjoying the rare occasion of having a lucid dream, you never realize that you’re dreaming. Only when you wake are you able to register what a complete shit show your dream was. Well, it’s no different than realizing we spent so many years running off unconscious programs.
If that’s the case, then how do we get in that dream like state?
Hard truth: we are programmed since childhood. And not by one specific thing either, but by a multitude of factors.
Unless we were born into a more conscious family, our primary caretakers were most likely unconscious to some degree. It is not their fault, though. You only know what you know by what’s given to you. When you look back at what was given to the previous generations––information, news, food, ideas, education––hopefully we start to realize that it’d be in the best interest of the people in power to choose what they gave out.
But they were only able to do this, for the most part, up until the age of the internet. Then everything changed.
Look at it like this:
If we never wake up, we never question the things around us. If we never question the things around us, we never learn autonomy. If we never learn autonomy, we never question the things around us. If we never question the things around us, we never wake up. If we never wake up, well then shit, someone’s got to benefit from that––and it ain’t us.
The other way we find ourselves here is we have a little taste of awakening at some point early on in our lives. But we try to deny that it ever happened because its implications are too much for us to handle. We then think that ignorance is bliss, but it’s not. No matter how hard we try to abide by this philosophy, if we’ve had some form of awakening––realization––then there’s no going back.
“You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
We can try, (and we sure do), but there will always be that little piece of us that knows.
But what do we know?
Ah, I’m glad you asked.
(Weird that I’m having a conversation with myself, right? Fuck off.)
I think with that first shred of awareness, no matter how big or how small, we realize that maybe everything in the world isn’t entirely what we thought it was. We catch a glimpse that perhaps there’s more to us than just this body or mind that we were given. We are shown that there are major fucking problems in this world that need our help. And we understand that to be awake means we have to hold ourselves to a certain level of accountability.
Enough to make anyone want to turn a blind eye.
From this point, one of two things happens: We either get curious enough to pursue that path, or the mere realization sends us into a frenzy of denial.
Who am I––this one single person––to change the world?
Truthfully, we probably won’t do much––PAUSE. Don’t freak out. I know how this sounds, but hear a brother out.
I think 90% of us are not these Albert Einsteins or Elon Musks––but we don’t have to be and that’s the beauty. All we have to do is show up and play our role, whatever that is. That’s it.
Where ever you feel you’re being pulled in life, do that. Don’t worry about the money, or fame, or accolades, or god damn retirement plan. Those are all traps. Just do what you were put here to do, and I believe that this will alleviate most of that internal suffering.
But I don’t know what I was put here to do?
Yes, you do. We all do. But years of being conditioned by fear will make us think otherwise.
As you read those words, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there was a little voice in your head that instantly chimed in and said, “man, I should be doing X, but instead I’m doing Y.” I’ll also bet that this isn’t the first time that you’ve heard this voice.
Fuck the X and do the Y. There is a piece of us trying to guide us to the highest version of ourselves if we have the courage to listen.
Stop thinking you have to save the entire world by doing X, Y, and Z. All that does is lead to analysis paralysis. Want to know how you save the world? You save the world by doing Y because only you can do Y. Yes, there might be other people doing Y, but they won’t being doing it how you can do it. The world cannot afford people continuing to play it small by settling for Y.
AWARENESS IS CHAOS
“What’s more useful is to understand that to be disoriented is part of the process of awakening; it is natural to be disoriented, because everything is new. You are new, your perception is new, and your perception of everything and everyone has now changed.” – Adyashanti The End of Your World
Waking up doesn’t come without a price. There are pieces of you that, whether you like it or not, have to, and will, die off to grow through this process.
Looking back on my life, at the end of one summer where I got really into meditation, I had noticed a level of awareness that was never present before.
It started when I realized that I wasn’t daydreaming anymore. It may seem trivial, but for me, it was a turning point. I was a space cadet who now couldn’t remember the last time he zoned out.
Hello? Nirvana? I’m ready now.
Fuck off, kid.
Shit.
From there, things only got better. I now felt more involved in life. I was finally the driver of my life instead of the passenger. This way of life felt so surreal compared to how I was living the 22 years before that. But as incredible as it was in the beginning, things soon turned to hell.
With newfound awareness for the beauty in life, it also meant a reluctant understanding of the more challenging things in life.
I soon noticed all the less than stellar qualities about myself that I had avoided for so long. Lying, complaining, being a douchebag to my friends, treating my mom like shit, manipulated people, sought attention, bragging, self-obsessed; these were all things I couldn’t pretend to ignore anymore and shit got hard.
When I read the words “awareness is chaos,” for me, I associate it with this period of my life. I think most people go through this as it’s just a natural part of maturing. But what became the issue was the new level of accountability that I couldn’t seem to shake.
There was no more lying to myself about these issues because there was no more lying, period. Any time I tried to justify shitty behavior, it would eat away at me, and I knew I would need to right the wrong at some point. If someone annoyed me, I knew it had something to do with me and not them. That meant turning inwards to figure out why.
There also was this hyper-vigilance switch that I could not seem to turn off no matter how hard I tried. Things that used to pass by as background noise were now a part of my world 24/7. Desperately trying to find off switch, I soon felt as I was going insane.
It’s moments like these that pulling the idea of waking up out of the taboo and placing it in reality will only work in our favor as a roadmap begins to be set in place for our stubborn western mentality. How many more people need to suffer because of our arrogance? Because we can’t admit that there might be more to life then we were lead to believe?
AWARENESS TURNS YOU INTO A DOUCHEBAG
“As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” – John Wheeler (taken from Ryan Holiday’s Ego Is The Enemy)
What follows the “awareness is chaos stage” is a stage that I believe is unavoidable. It’s the part where we think we finally get it. “Step the fuck aside, peasants,” we proclaim as the clouds open up, and we break out our magic scrolls notes section in our iPhones that have all “the answers.”
(Do we even take the time to sit down and write out our thoughts anymore? Or do we just string together a bunch of our ideas in our notes section and call it a day?)
Without realizing, our Messiah-complex has full control over us, and we become fully submerged in playing the role of the enlightened one.
I know some of you are reading this thinking, “Messiah-complex? That’s all you bro.” If you are 100% honest with yourself, at some point in “waking up,” we all end up playing the holier-than-thou role––unless we’re smart enough to learn from others’ mistakes.
It is this nightmare of a stage that causes 90% of the outside people to be turned off, and rightly so. But here’s the thing; this stage is only another level of awareness that need’s to be worked through. If we can’t see through the traps of this stage, or don’t have the balls to own up to the fact that we duped ourselves, then we run the risk of getting lost.
Finding ourselves here is a tough pill to swallow. I’ve wrote about coming clean on finding myself in this stage and it’s has to be one of the more embarrassing things to write about. Our realization of this trap also doesn’t mean that it ends right there. It is a constant battle to keep ourselves in check as to not slip back into playing the role of the guru.
An essential part to remember here that can help keep us in check is: We are everything, and we are nothing, simultaneously. If we have a superpower, then that means everyone has a superpower. There is no being above or below someone. There is no “chosen one” out there. We still have to “wipe our ass and pay bills.”
Staying humble enough to remember this is the moment we remember that we are all chosen ones. We are all waking each other home. In the end, I cannot live up to my full potential without you working towards your own, and you cannot live up to your full potential if I’m not working towards mine.
AWARENESS IS BLISS
“I would like to play the part of someone who has worked on my consciousness sufficiently so that if things get tough, in terms of environment, social structures, oppression, minority groups, whatever the thing is – I would like to be able to be in the scene without getting caught in my own reactivity to it, without getting so caught in my own fear that I become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.” – Ram Dass
And we finally find ourselves at the end of the stages where life is good.
We’ve realized that the chaos doesn’t last forever, and neither does the Messiah-complex. We’ve discovered the transient nature behind everything, and we slowly become ok with that. And we’ve realized enough to know that the more we know, the less we actually know.
But the way life works is, we forget. We forget how to be gentle with ourselves and with the ones closest to us. We forget the lessons we swore we would remember. We forget to be kind to our moms and tell them how much we love them. And mostly, we forget that Love is the antidote that we’re all desperately searching for.
In my opinion, as we forget these lessons, we go back to sleep––never to the level that we once were, but we cruise on auto-pilot for a little. How long we stay there is up to us, for the most part. We either get to a point where this need for an even deeper level of homeostasis drives us back to the “awareness is chaos stage” to start up the cycle again. Or life does what it does best and tries to wake us up again and again through another injury, or a breakup, or a financial burden, or self-sabotage, until we learn the lesson to get out of that cycle.
Remember how I said earlier, “rinse and repeat until everything gets a little gentler?” Yeah, that’s what we now find ourselves in.
Now, did I just use a sine wave dampening––science––to explain the mystical? Sure did. Different sides of the same coin soon to one day meet each other.
But still, like why should I care about being more awake, you twat?
That Ram Dass quote is precisely why you should care about being more awake. To become part of the solution instead of the problem, you twat.
If you’re looking to have this blog broken down a little deeper, and into separate sections, you can check out my Roadmap To Connection Series, or you can click here to start it up. Also, any questions, comments, or disagreements, feel free to leave down below. Much love everyone.
Edited by: Patricia Hendriks.